


Nature Boy

by orphan_account



Series: Encantado [3]
Category: Dong Bang Shin Ki
Genre: Alternate Universe, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Magic Realism, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Travels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-04
Updated: 2010-10-04
Packaged: 2017-10-12 11:05:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/124200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brazilian folklore tells of the encantados, dolphins with the ability to change into, and bewitch, humans. Three stories of four foreigners in Rio de Janeiro, and their encounters with an "enchanted one". There was a boy, a very strange, enchanted boy. They say he wandered very far, very far, over land and sea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nature Boy

Yoochun can't be sure if the young man is dead or alive when he first spots him floating, fully dressed, on his back in the sea. He has no idea how he got there, or when, but the figure is human, and Yoochun can't help fearing the worst.

"Oh shit, oh shit." The last thing he needs is to get involved in a police investigation in a foreign country. He steers the boat carefully over, calling out in a first-come-first-serve mix of English, Korean, and Portuguese: "Hey! You, guy in the water, hey! Are you okay?"

 _Are you alive? Please, oh_ please _, say yes._

"Of course," the young man says, and Yoochun can breathe a huge sigh of relief. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Oh, I dunno. You're kinda far from the shore, aren't you?"

"If you say so."

"What're you doing out here anyway?"

"Thinking." And just as Yoochun is about to ask him what he would possibly be thinking so far from land: "What are you doing out here?"

Isn't it obvious from the boat and the rod? "Fishing. So, I guess you could say that puts us sort of in the same boat."

"No, I wouldn't say. _I'm_ in the water."

For a moment, Yoochun contemplates explaining the joke to him; but the young man, who is now treading water, gives him this look, and he realizes belatedly _he's_ the one being messed with. "Never mind. Aren't you worried about sharks?"

"No. Why? Should I be?"

Yoochun opens his mouth and closes it again, not sure if he should bother to answer that question. Either the young man is a little crazy in the head, from exposure or otherwise, or he knows something Yoochun doesn't, and neither case is one Yoochun wants to argue with.

"And anyway, you probably shouldn't be fishing here. There're dolphins all over this area. They're a protected species, you know."

"Yeah, well, I highly doubt any of them are gonna kill themselves on this measly little hook—not like it would interest them in the first place. Or anyone else, for that matter, the way I've been going."

"You'd be surprised."

And there's something in the way he says that, the way he looks at Yoochun that makes him ill at ease. There's something vaguely dangerous about him, as if he might reach out and pull Yoochun right down into the water with him, if given even the slightest bit of incentive. Yoochun wonders if the young man is even aware of it.

He shakes the feeling off with a shiver. "Are you saying you think you could do better?"

"Maybe. Not with that stick, though."

"With what, then? Your bare hands?"

"Maybe."

"Yeah. That I'd like to see."

A couple of leisurely breast strokes and the young man is beside his boat. "Give me a ride back to shore, and I'll owe you one."

"Right. You'll owe me a fish?"

A chuckle. "If that's what you want."

And before Yoochun can even lend a helping hand, the young man is pulling himself up and over the side, clothes dripping into the bottom of the boat and clinging suggestively to his frame. Showing off lean muscle, and a nicely rounded backside. One Yoochun can't help but appreciate, which has to be some sort of first for him.

 _Must be too much sun._ When he gets back to land, he's investing in a good hat.

There's a restaurant on the pier, and the young man he rescued—on second thought, Yoochun thinks, "rescued" is hardly the right word; the guy seemed perfectly happy to stay where he was—could probably use something to eat after being out on the water all morning. Yoochun offers to buy lunch, and the young man accepts without missing a beat.

"I'll pay you back," he says when the bill comes.

"That's two you owe me, now."

"I mean it," he insists, though if Yoochun were to be perfectly honest with him, he doesn't really care about reimbursement. "I just . . . don't have anything on me at the moment."

"Right. Your wallet was on your boat when it got away from you."

The young man just stares at him with knitted brows, and Yoochun feels obligated to elaborate: "The reason you were floating out there. When you didn't say anything, I just assumed you'd lost your boat."

The other smiles uneasily. "Sure. Let's go with that."

"Hey. You weren't dropped out there, were you? I mean, like a drug deal gone bad or— Am I going to be in trouble for finding you?"

That earns him a burst of laughter, the corners of the young man's eyes crinkling as he looks around the restaurant patio to see if anyone else appreciated the humor. "Yes. You're in some serious shit now for picking me up. You probably shouldn't even be seen with me in public, for your own safety. No," he chuckles at Yoochun's look of horror. "Of course not. It's nothing like that. Trust me."

Yoochun does, whether he means to or not. The young man's wide smile is magnetic. The way he wriggles a bit in his plywood chair like he isn't used to sitting in one place for longer than a minute, like a puppy with too much energy to expend, instantly endearing. And Yoochun can't stand him for it.

"Are you taking your boat out again tomorrow?" he asks as Yoochun lights a cigarette.

"It's a rental, actually. And yeah. Tomorrow's the last day I have it. You wanna come?"

The young man squints out at the pier, thinking hard. Then why did he bring it up, Yoochun wants to know, if he hadn't already made up his mind? "What time?"

"Ah, jeez, I don't know. Same bat time, same bat channel?"

"Okay." The young man nods to himself. "I'll be here. The name's Xiah, by the way. I don't think I ever told you that."

It startles Yoochun to realize he never bothered to ask.

* * *

True to his word, Xiah is already on the pier when Yoochun gets there. But if Yoochun had any doubts that this was a good idea, they evaporate under Xiah's smile. A peace offering of a cooler swings from his hand, which Yoochun can only assume is for the fish he plans to catch this time.

They head out into open water, Xiah glorying in the breeze on his face, Yoochun just praying the fedora he bought last night in the hotel gift shop doesn't blow away. He lets Xiah direct him to a place he knows far from the tourists, far from any other sea traffic. Not for the last time Yoochun wonders if this young man is in possession of some sort of magic, because when they reach their destination it's as if they've been transported hundreds rather than a few kilometers away from the city. The water sparkles like aquamarine under the clear sky, the trees along the rocky shore like emeralds.

Yoochun has barely dropped anchor when Xiah starts pulling off his shirt.

Which doesn't strike him as particularly strange until Xiah goes for the waistband of his shorts as well. "You get naked to fish?"

Xiah laughs under his breath. "Who said anything about fishing? We came here to swim."

"Right. Maybe you did. I didn't bring my trunks."

"That's okay. There's no one around for miles, so there's no need to be modest."

"You kidding me? Ah, no." No, this is going nowhere good, and getting there fast. And getting naked with someone he hardly knows is only the first of Yoochun's problems. "There could be a hundred sharks in there right now just waiting to take a bite out of a couple of guys like us. Well, mostly me 'cause I'd make an easy meal. I've seen the TV shows. You're not getting me in that."

Xiah laughs. The shorts come off, and Yoochun can't look away quickly enough.

"There aren't any sharks."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Because they all feed around the mouth of the river. Do you see any rivers around here?"

Yoochun in fact doesn't. Though in looking back at the shore to check he has to first turn and face Xiah, which he suspects was part of the young man's motive in saying what he did. Relax, Yoochun tells himself, he doesn't have anything you haven't seen before. But the truth is, he's never felt such an urge to stare openly at another man before, either.

"Still." He clears his throat. "It's the ocean. You just never know what could happen. I'm not going in there."

"Suit yourself."

The splash tells Yoochun it's OK to look. Xiah is swimming away from the side of the boat with long, lazy strokes, the sunlight throwing wave shadows on his back. "See?" he says, turning. "No sharks. It's kind of warm, too."

"I don't believe you. I'm not jumping in!"

"Come on, Yoochun, you party-pooper! You can swim, can't you?"

"Of course I can."

"Then what's the big deal?"

Yoochun could say he's had enough dreams about dark water to scare him from swimming for life, thank you very much, dreams where he _knows_ there's something sinister moving, circling underneath the surface that he just can't see clearly, no matter how hard he tries to focus. There might not be any sharks, but there's no telling what else is lurking down there waiting to maim or kill him. Or when a sudden wave might pull them away from the boat and out to sea. Or worse: pound them against the rocks in the opposite direction. Sure, the water is calm now, but what guarantee do they have from Mother Nature it will stay that way?

As if reading Yoochun's mind, Xiah takes a breath and disappears under the surface. Yoochun leans over the side of the boat, but though he can seen the white sandy bottom just fine, he can't see where Xiah went at all.

A minute passes, then another, and there's still no sign of Xiah. That's when Yoochun lets out a string of curses and hurriedly strips down to his boxers. He really isn't the type of guy for this, he thinks aloud, this is crazy, he's not a good enough swimmer to play lifeguard, doesn't even know CPR, and why did he ever agree to come with someone as clearly emotionally unbalanced as Xiah in the first place?

Then he jumps.

Dark, flickering blue envelops him completely for a few disorienting seconds, and then his head bobs out of water. It may not be cold, but it shocks him enough to delay his first dive after Xiah. Which is just as well, because as soon as he has Yoochun where he wants him, Xiah breaks the surface, exhaling a spray that's far too casual for one who's been down as long as he has.

"I'm going to kill you," Yoochun sputters. Or tries to. It doesn't come out very coherent.

"Come on. It's not really that bad, is it?"

It isn't, really. Not when Yoochun remembers to breathe. It still makes him nervous to think he's in open water, but somehow it's not so terrible.

"Better than a pool," Xiah says with a grin.

"Nobody's peed in it."

"Except everything that lives in it."

Yoochun attacks then. He lunges forward, intent on making Xiah pay, and ends up with more water in his own mouth and nose while Xiah kicks away, laughing. He's even faster in the water than out, disappearing when Yoochun turns his head only to grab Yoochun's ankle below the surface a moment later, nearly giving him a heart attack before he can reassure himself it isn't a shark.

Xiah shakes his head when he comes up for air and his hair sticks up like a rudder. He clings to Yoochun as they tread water, breathless as he murmurs next to his ear, "You've got to see it, Chunnie. It's a whole different world under there. Just beautiful." His bare skin feels like satin against Yoochun under the surface, and he forgets to ask about the sudden nickname. Tries not to think of the lean body he glimpsed in toto for just a split second back on the boat, and fails. Miserably.

Xiah's boyish grin, untrustworthy Virgil though he may make in his wilderness in which they are so vulnerable, is impossible to resist. Yoochun allows himself to be pulled under. He holds his breath and opens his eyes to find himself in a Roger Dean painting, where turtles and winged-looking fish soar between green, smoky pillars of coral. But the salt water burns his eyes, and his lung capacity is nothing like Xiah's, and after only seconds he's forced to return to the surface. He floats on the gentle waves, on the membrane between two impossibly blue worlds, while Xiah torpedoes effortlessly back and forth beneath him, a peachy shape gliding across the shadow of the reef.

It's only when they're out of the water that Yoochun understands the reason for Xiah's nakedness. His salt water-soaked boxers start feeling itchy and uncomfortable the moment the air gets into them, while the clothes they left behind are sun-warmed and dry. With a properly clothed Xiah promising to look the other way—Yoochun can't be sure, but he has a sneaking suspicion Xiah looks anyway—he changes into his jeans, draping the boxers over the edge of the boat to dry, and himself over the deck.

The cooler Xiah brought is filled with beer and bottled water, some soggy deli sandwiches. They open a couple of the former, eye the latter warily, unable to decide if they're brave or hungry enough to try. The only thing Yoochun can say for certain is that the cooler won't be carrying any fish home with them. His rod and tackle box lie where he first put them, untouched since they left the pier.

Yoochun can't help but be conscious of the way Xiah glances over at him, the way he seems to stare too long when he does. If anything, it seems, Yoochun should be staring at him. His old high school body issues rise all too easily to the surface under that gaze. He's always been skinnier than he'd like; whereas Xiah, who's barely any taller than he is, is all lean muscle, his high waist like a girl's, and lightly bronzed from the sun all over. It's no wonder he has no qualms swimming in the nude. He's like a wild thing in his element; he can afford to show off.

"You swim like a dolphin."

Xiah laughs at that. "I should hope so!"

"You laugh like one, too."

He manages to suppress it this time, and if he could blush with his complexion, Yoochun's sure Xiah would be.

Happy to have scored one for the home team, a little payback for all he had to suffer in the water, Yoochun wiggles on his back. "Maybe you were a dolphin in your past life."

"You believe in that sort of thing?"

"Sure. Why not? Who really knows?"

"In that case, what would you have been in your past life, Yoochun?"

Strange how Yoochun actually misses the nickname Xiah gave him. It must have been a spur-of-the-moment thing. Nothing meaningful. He plays along: "I don't know. Not a dolphin, that's for sure. Or a fish, or anything living in water. Or flying, for that matter. Something low to earth, I think, grounded. A lizard, maybe. Or a snake."

"Or some kind of burrowing animal?" Yoochun gives him that one, and Xiah chuckles. "I find it hard to picture you as a snake."

"Not slimy enough?"

"Hm-m, on second thought. . . ."

He gets Yoochun's damp towel thrown at him in response.

His laughter dies away, and Xiah gets up. He sits down again on the deck beside Yoochun.

"You ever made love like a dolphin?"

It's a strange question. Maybe it's the way he said it, as if it just occurred to him, but it's like he knows what's been going through Yoochun's mind those times he's been caught staring. But, "I can honestly say I've never given any thought whatsoever to dolphins making love. Or any other animal, for that matter."

"It's a beautiful ritual. Really. One of the most beautiful in nature."

Yoochun steels himself on one elbow, feeling like an idiot for asking, but, "Okay. I'll bite. How do dolphins make love?"

"They can't kiss," Xiah says as he stretches himself out on his stomach beside Yoochun, "and their fins are too short, so they can't embrace either. So they swim together, alongside each other, twisting around and over and under each other. And as they pass, they touch."

His arm just nudges Yoochun's as he says so, the touch at once so contrived yet so casual, Yoochun's breath hitches. His gaze is drawn down the length of Xiah's body, calm as the surface of the sea against the gentle rocking of the boat, and smooth and tan beneath his poorly buttoned shirt. When he looks back up it's to see Xiah staring at him out of the corner of his eye. The impish smile from before is gone, replaced with something intense, something serious. Something Yoochun doesn't have the willpower to reject.

"Just a light touch," Xiah murmurs, "more like a brush, really." Bolder now, he runs a lazy hand over Yoochun's naked side, so light his fingertips just kiss Yoochun's skin, making him shiver.

It's all the invitation Xiah needs. Their eyes lock, and he pushes Yoochun back down against the deck of the boat, gentle yet firm. Nor does Yoochun make any effort to fight him.

"The males especially—they swim in pairs—" Xiah leans over him, tracing the shallow lines of Yoochun's arms, his chest, his stomach with the tips of his fingers, "and they'll caress each other, pet each other—" now his knuckles, the flats of his nails, the side of his thumb skimming reverently over each rib or ridge of muscle, "as they glide along just under the surface—" so slow Yoochun is aware of nothing else but the weight of the young man next to him, the space he takes up, his distance when he breathes in and his stomach just grazes Yoochun's, "at the speed of sound." Xiah bites his lip, in concentration or restraint, watching his own progress, drawing Yoochun's gaze with his as he continues down the line of hair from Yoochun's navel, down to the waistband of his jeans, and under it.

Yoochun gasps. His breath comes shallow when Xiah flicks open the snaps of his fly. He hasn't felt this sensitive, every damn inch of him, and this sexually innocent since adolescence, his first time with a girl. Xiah brings it all back, in spades. He drags lazy fingertips up the underside of his cock and Yoochun arches the base of his spine to meet them, in vain. Xiah's touch is so light it hurts. So new and alien, yet somehow he seems to know Yoochun so well, so much better than he knows himself, knows just where to stroke him to make him melt. It's crazy, Yoochun thinks, doing this, on a boat so far from shore, from civilization, with a boy who thinks dolphin sex is the best nature has to offer, and it's beautiful and he never wants it to stop.

His thumb is doing slow, maddening circles around the head when, abruptly, Xiah does stop. He knows Yoochun is so close, yet he stops. Hesitates. "Yoochun, there's something I should probably tell you."

"Later."

Yoochun silences Xiah with his lips, pulling the young man down to kiss him long and deep, not caring whether it's part of his plan or not. Xiah's hand closes around him and he comes with a whimper. Which Xiah quietly drinks in, making sure he sees Yoochun through the to the very slack-muscled end of his climax before turning onto his back beside him. He adjusts himself under his shorts while Yoochun is preoccupied with catching his breath, but he doesn't ask for anything more.

Whatever he thought was so important just moments before is equally forgotten. Xiah reaches for the towel Yoochun threw at him, wordlessly handing it over. Eventually it's all going to catch up with him, Yoochun thinks. His common sense, his self-consciousness, everything that normally keeps him from making mistakes like this.

But all he ends up with when the afterglow starts to fade is an ache in his back from lying on the hard deck for so long, the endless sea of the sky, and Xiah, leaning over him, staring at something he finds mesmerizing.

Much as he tries, Yoochun can't believe that something is himself.

* * *

No spoken invitation is necessary when they return to shore. Xiah waits patiently for him to get the paperwork squared with the rental office, then picks up the cooler, hands Yoochun his tackle box, and follows him back to his hotel, as naturally as if he was the one who made the reservation.

When everything is put back in its appropriate place, which is wherever it happens to be set down, Yoochun doesn't ask him to leave. He talks Xiah's ear off, waiting for the bathtub to fill while Xiah flips through the books and CDs Yoochun brought with him. Maybe it should bother him a little more to have someone he hardly knows going through his personal effects, but it doesn't feel that way. No more than it bothers him when Xiah climbs into the tub behind him, offering to wash his back.

"I can feel the salt sticking to me," Yoochun says by way of acquiescence, making room.

He can hear Xiah's smile behind him.

"You get used to it." The roughness of the washcloth prickles Yoochun's back, but Xiah's efforts seem rather half-hearted at best. "Sorry we didn't catch any fish."

"It's okay. I had fun. To tell you the truth," Yoochun goes on, if only to ward off the awkward silence that keeps threatening to descend between them, "I don't really like fishing. When you met me, that was the first time I'd tried it in years. I guess because the fishing trips my dad used to take me and my brother on always seemed like my best memories, I thought I'd enjoy it more. Somehow I always remember us actually catching something, but now I'm beginning to wonder if Dad just picked up a couple of fish at the store on our way home and convinced us we caught them. Because honestly, I suck at it."

Xiah laughs a little at that. "You do kind of suck."

"And I'm really bad when it comes to killing things."

"And it's boring."

"Thank you for understanding." A deep breath. "You know, the whole reason I came here was 'cause I heard Dad lived in Brazil for a while when he was young? Yeah. Apparently he used to tell stories about seeing Carnival in Rio. Of course, this was back in the 'seventies before my brother and I were even thought of. We only found out about it after his death. All these things he did, and it's like we never even knew him."

The washcloth slows even more against his back. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be." Yoochun shakes his head, though more for his own benefit than Xiah's. Stares at his wrinkling fingertips under the soapy water. "I'm not. I mean, I was. For a long time. I mean, when you're eight years old you think nothing's ever going to change, that there's magic all around you in the world and it'll protect you from the pain and unpleasantness of reality. But then you grow up, and you don't get second chances to apologize, or explain yourself. Before you know it, you lose the things that are most valuable to you, before you've even realized what they're worth. Or maybe you just forget. . . ."

He trails off. There just isn't anything more he can think of to say.

But there's no shame, either. None of the embarrassment he thought there would be, spilling his guts to Xiah, voicing out loud the things he's only dared confront on paper, and none of the tears. It was just something he needed to say, and it didn't matter to whom.

Xiah rubs slow circles into his back, and it doesn't take much before Yoochun's thoughts are drifting back to their secluded stretch of shoreline, the smell of the sea and the sun and the gentle rocking of the boat. That afternoon already seems like a dream.

But Xiah presses his lips to Yoochun's spine, to his shoulder blade, his warm breath making Yoochun shiver, and there's nothing unreal about it. He kisses Yoochun's neck, a sensitive knot of vertebrae, and Yoochun has to suck in a breath. He's getting hard. And Xiah might be behind him, but he knows. He can feel it in the tension in Yoochun's body.

"You okay?" he murmurs beside Yoochun's ear.

Christ, but he sounds genuinely concerned.

"More than okay," Yoochun breathes back. "I've just never really been interested in another guy, is all. Not like this. It's foreign territory." The words sound strange coming out of his mouth, a joke, but under Xiah's hands, he can't seem to find the humor in them.

Instead of a response, Xiah simply leans in and captures Yoochun's mouth with his. He reaches down into the water to see what effect he's had on Yoochun for himself, wrapping his fingers firmly around Yoochun, stroking him slow. Yoochun moans into his mouth. But it's as much in mourning as appreciation when Xiah's hand leaves his cock for his stomach, tracing the depressions in his torso with his fingertips. It's all Yoochun can do not to grab that hand and guide it back where he wants it.

"Do you trust me?" Xiah says.

 _Do I trust you?_ As if everything that happened that afternoon wasn't sign enough of Yoochun's trust? Hell, even letting a strange boy with strange habits of floating so far from shore into his boat in the first place had been a gamble.

But he turns around when Xiah asks him to, allows himself to be pushed back against the far side of the tub. They didn't get much of a chance on the boat, beyond what Yoochun managed to steal for himself, so he doesn't rush it when Xiah kisses him fully, reciprocally, for the first time, like he must have been waiting all day to do. He threads one hand through Yoochun's hair, cradling his head as he coaxes his lips apart, his tongue tracing the line of Yoochun's teeth. The other strokes him restlessly beneath the water, down and then up his thighs, fisting his cock, petting his stomach—his hand heavy now, not the feather-light brushes of dolphins at sex-play. He's put his own needs off long enough. His erection is a hot weight against Yoochun's stomach as he presses himself closer, as are the insides of Xiah's thighs straddling his. When Xiah does break away it's with a small grunt, brows knit and biting his lip in concentration, and it takes Yoochun a moment to realize Xiah's stretching himself on his own fingers. When he does, it's a miracle he doesn't come right then and there.

Somehow he holds himself together, even when Xiah lowers himself onto Yoochun's cock with none of the patience he showed earlier in the day, so warm and tight around him, every muscle in Xiah's body tight and tense, his grip white-knuckled on the edge of the tub. He begins to move, just his hips, rolling them with a precision that pulls Yoochun in deeper each time. His feet slip along the bottom of the tub searching for purchase as he's sucked into Xiah's tempo, switching to autopilot, thrusting mindlessly up into him. Gripping Xiah's buttocks as if that could possibly get him any closer. The slap of the water between their bodies echoes off the tiles, drowned out by Xiah's unabashed moans and clipped, muttered curses that tell Yoochun he's close, he's so fucking close—

Xiah shudders, contracting around Yoochun's cock, and Yoochun is gone, with a pathetic whimper he just feels too goddamn _good_ to be ashamed of. His head falls back against the lip of the tub as the flood of pleasure washes over him, sweeping them both away. This is what he came here for, Yoochun thinks, convinced. Because he needed to be released. He needed someone to show him he was going to be OK. He needed _this_. Maybe they both did.

Even when the last throbs of their orgasms have faded away, neither of them wants very much to move.

"Carnival is tomorrow, you know," Xiah says, voice small now, conciliatory. Though for what is beyond Yoochun.

Who mumbles a barely coherent, "I know."

"Do you want to watch it with me?"

"'D be nice. Are you going to stay here tonight?"

Not like he needs to ask. Or has a choice, for that matter. If Yoochun hasn't figured it out by now, Xiah will do what Xiah wants.

* * *

Sleep never comes easy for Yoochun, and it seems even less so in a foreign place, with another body sleeping, breathing, constantly shifting beside him. He stares at the ceiling for what must be twenty or thirty minutes after waking again for the he's-lost-track-of-what-number-he's-up-to time, before he finally drags himself from bed.

He retreats to the narrow balcony to smoke a butt. The air isn't cold, but it makes him shiver in his thin t-shirt, listening to the sound of distant traffic in the dead-early hours of the morning. Normally at times like this, he would pour his latent energy into his writing, praying the exercise will wear him out enough to the point it's no longer a struggle to get back to sleep. But not tonight. The pen won't help; words won't help. Whatever's on his mind is something new and alien, something he has no words to begin to describe.

He's on his third or fourth cigarette when Xiah opens the balcony door. An arm wraps around Yoochun's midsection, hand sliding warm up under his shirt, chin resting on his shoulder. "Couldn't sleep?"

"Insomnia," Yoochun says in an exhale of smoke. He flicks and pinches out the end of the cigarette. "I get it often."

"I know a cure for that."

Xiah's voice is groggy, but his fingers seem full of wakeful energy as they crawl under the waistband of Yoochun's sweats.

He sucks in a breath. Can't help a grin even as he tells Xiah, "It doesn't actually work. Believe me. I've tried enough times."

"Maybe you're just not doing it right." And with Xiah's tongue curling around the ridge of his ear, Yoochun can't think of anything to say to refute his logic. His teeth pull gently on the lobe, the wet sound of each breath lapping against the weather-beaten hull of Yoochun's mind, each long, delicious stroke of Xiah's fingers along his cock slowly breaking down whatever's still anchoring him to the balcony railing.

He lets Xiah pull him back into the room, and disrobe him at a less hurried pace from the edge of the bed. Yoochun can take his time returning the favor of yesterday afternoon. One thing he does love about these earliest hours of morning, time seems to grind to a slow halt and stand still, and the world with it.

The next time he wakes, it's late on the [](http:)morning of Carnival, his bones are humming from good, wholesome sleep, and he can't remember if he even dreamed. Xiah is already up and about, dressed and waiting for him, his hair still damp from a shower. He's taking Yoochun out, he proclaims as he flips through what Yoochun recognizes belatedly as one of his journals. He finds the energy to leap out of bed then, and beat Xiah at a game of keep-away, if only because he resorts to cheating. Realizing only after the fact that that was exactly what Xiah wanted him to do, and he probably hasn't read the journal at all.

Down on street level, revelers begin to gather in clumps that weave through the streets, sweeping up anyone who gets in their way. It's still too early for the more elaborate costumes, but not for the music. They get caught up in the swell and energy of one crowd, forgetting for a little while where they are and where they're going, simply moving along with the incessant beat of the samba drums and the whistles and shouts. It's like something out of a postcard. Yoochun's head is still spinning from it when Xiah suddenly pulls him out of the current of bodies and up against an old plaster wall, crushing their mouths together, breathless.

Where that came from, Yoochun doesn't know, but Xiah pulls away too soon. He seems just as surprised by it as he leans against the cool wall, catching his breath while Yoochun's heart catches up with them. "Come on," Xiah says after a moment, as if nothing has happened, though the satisfied grin on his lips would seem to indicate otherwise. They thread through the shaded alleys side by side, taking a reprieve from the party atmosphere of the main streets.

They pass the doorsteps of homes, some closed, others invitingly open and issuing an aroma of cooking, strains of music or the cacophony of a TV. Away from the skyscrapers' modern lines and the rush of traffic, it feels to Yoochun like they're traversing the soul of Rio, and he's content to be led wherever Xiah feels like taking him. A different kind of drumbeat issues from one open doorway, a more ancient kind of beat that, as they near, is joined by chanting voices and the smell of cigars.

Drawn by curiosity, they peer into the dark interior as they pass. An old man, black and wizened, sits just inside the door and looks up when they slow, but there is nothing malevolent in his stare, just a profound air of age. Or agelessness. Yoochun can't decide. A wisdom that's beyond his own conception of time.

"It isn't just a holy day for the Christians," Xiah murmurs to him, as if guessing his unspoken question. And Yoochun remembers reading about something like this in one of his guidebooks. A local religion of possession and transplanted gods. He doesn't want to pry where he's not welcome, but his curiosity draws his gaze in.

Xiah's firm grip on his arm yanks him back to himself.

"Macumba," he says under his breath. Then: "Let's go. The kind of people who worship here—they'll know what I am."

Yoochun wants to ask what he means by that, but Xiah doesn't seem particularly eager to elaborate. His smile comes back in no time, and Yoochun allows himself to be drawn away by the hand without any further protest or interrogation.

With the necessary provisions of food and alcohol in hand, they retire early to the hotel, where they can watch the evening's grand spectacle, the loud, colorful parades that pass below the room's tiny balcony. Men dressed as women. Women dressed as impossible birds, with tall, bright, waving headdresses. Showing off more brown skin than they cover as they turn and gyrate in a celebration more primitive than its supposed Catholic trappings.

"What are they supposed to be? Over there." Yoochun points to a group that stands out among the white-suited Joe Cariocas, wearing pink dorsal fins and long-nosed masks under their straw hats.

"Oh, those." Xiah doesn't interrupt his drumming along on the railing as he says, "They're supposed to be boto. Encantados."

It's a word Yoochun hasn't heard before and isn't sure he understands, despite the different connotations the root sounds raise in his mind. "What's that?"

Xiah sighs. Like he knew Yoochun would be asking that question.

"It's this story they tell in the river country, about a race of enchanted beings who take the shape of humans."

"What, you mean like fairies?"

A chuckle. "Fairies that normally look like dolphins, maybe. They change their shape to look like human beings when they come ashore. See, the one thing they can't resist is a good time, so they come on land to dance and sing and eat with the humans, make love to their women," Xiah says with a knowing chuckle, "and no one knows the difference. They just think that they're the life of the party.

"But to a trained eye—at least, so the story goes—you can always tell an encantado by his ridiculously large forehead. That's why they always wear the hats. To cover it up." And he grabs the bill of Yoochun's fedora and pulls it down, grinning devilishly as he teases, "Like so."

Yoochun is torn between offense and Xiah's joking spirit. He knows he's being played with one way or the other, so he fires back, in his most sinister voice: "Are you accusing me of being a shape-shifting dolphin?"

"No. I'm accusing you of having a big forehead."

That comment earns him a prod in the side. Which, once it's revealed to be a weak point, earns him a few more. Xiah erupts in a peal of laughter, before a shove against the balcony railing gets the point across that he's had enough.

"Okay, so they want to pass as humans," Yoochun says once they've both caught their breath again. "But why? What's the point?"

"The point?"

"Yeah. What's the moral of the story?"

"To feel, of course."

"Feel what?"

"Pain. Emotion. To feel whatever it is that human beings feel—whatever it is that makes them human. The encantados live in a place underwater where there is never any disease or war or hunger or death."

"A utopia, in other words."

"They're surrounded by all the fish they could ever eat, have all the sex anyone could ever want with whoever they want. It's a place filled with song and music and pleasure. But there just isn't any _meaning_ to any of it. There's no—" Xiah waves his hand in the air, as if feeling blindly for the right words that he might pluck them from the air. "Struggle," he decides on, "no ache of desire or sense of fulfillment when you finally get something you've been trying for that makes it all worth it. There's no first love and no heartbreak, because everything down there always was and always will be there for the taking."

"Sounds like the life to me," Yoochun says.

"It's boring," Xiah corrects him. "That's why they come on land. To _live_. And to love. To make their existence mean something, if only for a little while. And—so the story goes, anyway—when they find someone, some human being they absolutely cannot live without, they take that person home with them, under the water, where they never have to experience the pain of human life again."

Something in the wistful way Xiah ends his story, all the while staring into nothingness out over the crowds, gives Yoochun a sudden case of this chills, even with the bright costumes and upbeat music surrounding them. "You believe that?"

Xiah shakes himself out of his stare. And, perhaps, out of somewhere else as well.

"I don't know," he says. "I've never heard of anyone bringing a human home. I'm not fully convinced it's physically possible."

For an awkward moment, neither says anything as Yoochun can only stare. Then Xiah snaps, "What?" and Yoochun realizes that he's laughed.

"Nothing. It's just— Well, you talk about this stuff like you have personal experience."

"Of course I have personal experience," Xiah pouts. "I am one."

Yoochun can't help himself. He laughs again. "An encan—"

"Encan _tado_ ," Xiah finishes for him before he can butcher the pronunciation, "yes."

"A shape-shifting dolphin."

It must finally dawn on Xiah how crazy it sounds, if the color rising to his cheeks is any indication. "I shouldn't have said that. No one's supposed to know."

"No one's supposed to know. _That's_ what you're worried about."

"It sounds insane, doesn't it?" Xiah hangs his head in his hands, but even he can't stop a grin from spreading across his lips, though it may be at his own expense. "I know, I sound like a freak. I should have known you wouldn't believe me."

"It's not that. I believe . . . in your sincerity," Yoochun manages to assure him without technically lying.

But by Xiah's roll of the eyes, he isn't fooling anyone.

"Hey, they're discovering new species of birds in the Amazon every day. Who's to say there can't be things out there like encantados, too, that mankind's just never seen yet?"

"What do you mean, never seen? You're looking right at one."

"I mean, like, photographic evidence, in their natural habitat. Scientific proof. You know what I mean."

"You mean, just because they haven't appeared in _National Geographic_ yet—"

"Exactly. More or less."

Xiah doesn't exactly seem to be buying his—apology or justification, or whatever it is Yoochun's back-tracking was supposed to be. But the dark mood seems to lift from the balcony just as abruptly as it descended, and for that, at least, both are thankful. Yoochun even manages to forget about the whole encantado business for a time.

* * *

The morning after Carnival starts hazy and pink. Street cleaners are out early disposing of the evidence of last night's partying, and it's they who wake Yoochun from a sleep that was lighter than he thought it would be, for all Xiah's efforts to the contrary. Fraught with disorienting dreams about shadowy figures that he knew, without ever being told, deep down in their nature weren't what their faces or masks made them out to be.

Knowing he's not going to be getting any more z's any time soon, he works his arm out from under Xiah's head, careful not to wake him (fortunately, Xiah proves to be a much heavier sleeper than he is), and makes himself decent. Out of curiosity, he rifles through Xiah's trouser pockets, hoping—well, hoping for a last name or a home address that might reassure him the young man who's spent the last few nights in his bed is a legal, at least somewhat sane citizen, but he doesn't have a wallet, let alone an ID. Yoochun unplugs his laptop from its charger and carries it under his arm down to the lobby, where he orders a cup of coffee.

While he sips, and with a wary glance over his shoulder every five minutes, he googles encantados. Feels like a gullible fool for even considering it, but something about what Xiah said last night just doesn't want to leave him alone. He sounded too sure of the whole story for reason, which just makes Yoochun all the more desperate to prove him wrong.

He finds precisely the ammunition he was looking for, and confronts Xiah with it over breakfast in the hotel's restaurant: "I did some research, and there's no way you can be an encantado. I mean, supposing they even do exist."

Xiah's fork pauses on his plate. "You googled us, didn't you?" But he seems more amused by it than anything. He wiggles a bit in his seat, readying himself for the inevitable inquisition.

"There you go again, with the 'us'. But something about your story just doesn't add up. For one, the stories are all about river dolphins, those pink boto things they have up in the Amazon." Xiah just stares at him expectantly. "We're a long way from the Amazon."

"No, no, see, that's everyone's first mistake. Confusing us with real dolphins. We're a different species altogether. Not even cetacean. I guess to people living on the land we look enough like them to draw the wrong conclusion. I mean, we have shared the same environment for centuries. It's probably an easy mistake."

"But that's the other thing. According to the stories, encantados have always lived in fresh water. Around here, it's all ocean."

"It's called evolution? Look." Xiah finally just puts his utensils down. It seems to be easier for him to explain if his hands are free. "Living things migrate all the time in search of better resources, right? Sometimes to places you would think would be way out of their range. Oh, please—not to mention human beings! I mean, you people are Exhibit A when it comes to expanding your territory. And encantados are always in search of the next big party, right? Well, what city in the world do you know of that throws a better party than Rio?"

With his waiting hands in the air, know-it-all smile on his lips, Yoochun has to concede the point.  
"Okay. And you don't change back at nightfall either. Obviously."

"Just the pumpkin I rode in on."

"Then what about the blow hole thing? All the legends say you're supposed to be able to tell an encantado—and the reason they wear hats all the time—"

Xiah's sighs and interrupts before he can even finish. "If I had a blow hole on the top of my head, then why would I have nostrils? Come on. You really think someone who can change himself into a spitting image of a human being in every other way—" saucy grin included "—would be stymied by something like a blow hole?"

Yoochun has to laugh and shake his head at that. "I can't believe I'm sitting here arguing the finer points of an urban legend with you."

"It's not an urban legend."

"Right. Sorry. A _rural_ legend. Of which you're living proof." When Xiah nods, Yoochun snorts. "I'm sorry. It's not like I don't believe you, per se. It's just so unreal. Like I woke up one morning and suddenly I'm living _Splash_. I mean, think of it from my perspective."

"Splash?"

"It's this movie from the 'eighties. With Daryl Hannah? . . . Never mind. The point is, it's gonna take a while for it all to really sink in."

"Your opinion of me hasn't changed, then? You don't mind me hanging around even after what I've told you?"

"Are you kidding? Who said anything about not wanting you around? You're still the same exact weirdo I found floating in the ocean, as far as I'm concerned, encantado or not."

That, at least, is the truth, whatever Yoochun believes or doesn't. And Xiah isn't in any hurry to call him out on the rest.

"There is one part of the legend that's true," he says, shooting Yoochun a devilish smile over their breakfast.

Yoochun is about to ask him what it is when their waitress returns to the table to see if there's anything else they need.

Impish smile still firmly in place—and with one last knowing glance back at Yoochun—Xiah asks her for another cup of coffee, then proceeds to half-mumble something else to her that Yoochun can't quite translate, locking her in his coquettish stare for the entirety. Whatever it is, it earns him a flirtatious grin and a _lot_ of enthusiasm. It seems to take all the woman's willpower not to reach out and touch him, but her eyes do rake him over like those of a starving animal before she turns to leave.

When she's out of earshot, Xiah turns back to Yoochun with a shrug.

"You're talking about the glamour," Yoochun nods in understanding.

"I prefer to call it charisma."

"Call it whatever you like. I've seen piranhas more subtle." Xiah can't see how their waitress glances longingly back at their table every few seconds, but Yoochun has a straight shot. And he can't help feeling a little jealous. Whatever they have between them, it's not like he's given Xiah any reason to think he can't flirt with anyone else in front of him, but maybe he should have. "Okay. If you have this, ah, charisma, this power of enchantment over people, then why am I not affected?"

"What makes you think you aren't, Mr I'm-not-usually-attracted-to-men?"

Yoochun laughs at that. He feels himself coloring. He opens his mouth to defend himself, comes up with nothing, and shuts it again. Ignores the smugness he's sure is waiting for him on Xiah's lips.

The waitress returns with their bill, another cup of coffee, and a wink. Xiah snatches the former from the table. "Employee discount on the front," he says as soon as her back is turned, "cell number on the back. Need further proof of my prowess?"

Yoochun plucks the bill from his fingers. "I'll just be taking that. For my expenses."

"Fine with me." Xiah kicks him under the table, grinning over his coffee. "You're paying anyway. Speaking of which, where are you taking me today?"

* * *

They spend the morning window-shopping and museum-hopping, making time for a quickie in Yoochun's room while the local businesses enjoy siesta—a whirlwind tour of the city that winds up showing them everything and nothing, slowing by evening to a tired stroll.

Nightfall finds them at a quiet bar with lazy paddle fans and an open terrace that looks out on the beach. Utterly worn out as they stare at each other over their drinks and bolinhos and the curling smoke from Yoochun's cigarette, content to sit there for hours, soaking in the atmosphere and the silent pleasure of one another's company.

Maybe it's just all the restless nights catching up with him, but today felt different. It's something Yoochun can only see now that they're riding the tail end of it, but looking back, at all the laughter and the wonder they shared that day, it now feels as though it has all been to fulfill some unspoken last request. It's a feeling he just can't seem to shake.

Nor is he the only one. As if precisely to banish the dark mood, Xiah leaps up from his seat and demands, "Dance with me."

They wouldn't be the only ones dancing. It's late, and a lot of the couples weaving to the mellow music are beyond intoxication, heading into the melancholic haze between the last drink and the cab ride home.

Not that that warms Yoochun to the idea any more. "I'm resting my aching feet."

"I don't care." This morning, or even an hour or two ago, Xiah would be swatting his resting feet off the coffee table with a debonair grin that Yoochun would have found impossible to ignore anyway. It's the surrender in Xiah now that makes him sit up and take notice. "Please. Just one song."

The Hollies are playing "The Air That I Breathe" over the in-house stereo, and Yoochun doubts it could get much sappier than that. But the bourbon and beers are warm in his blood, and what should he really care what anyone else thinks? He doesn't realize just how exhausted and buzzed he is until he's standing there trying to figure out what to do, but Xiah takes him into his arms and starts moving right away and Yoochun doesn't need to. He settles for resting his own hands on Xiah's waist, and just tries to shift in time to the music.

It's Xiah he's more concerned about. Whatever's on his mind—and it must be quite a bit—he keeps his gaze stubbornly over Yoochun's shoulder and Yoochun can't read his expression. His face is a mask, and Yoochun doesn't know why he should expect anything more. It might feel like weeks have gone by, if not months, but he's really only known Xiah for a handful of days.

"Chunnie." Yoochun doesn't like the way he says it now. "Would you do something for me?"

His voice is like a crystal glass. Something strong and hard that would nonetheless shatter if Yoochun let it slip from his grasp. The words just fall out. "Anything you ask."

"I miss the river so much. Talking with you has made me realize that. I want to go back. Just to see it, just once. That's all I would need, I just wanna see it so bad—"

"That's fine." And it is. Impulsive though this may be, Yoochun wouldn't mind seeing more of the country, if he had someone to see it with. "I can make reservations, we can rent another boat. Let's talk it over in the morning, okay? We're both tired. Maybe we should head home—"

"No." And suddenly Xiah's arms are around his shoulders and the young man is crushing himself so tightly to Yoochun he misses a step and stumbles. Which shakes Xiah out of his funk just enough to loosen his grip, and murmur as he tries to find their sloppy rhythm again: "Can't we stay here just a little longer? Please."

Yoochun's not sure when in all of that he falls asleep, but when he comes to in the armchair he's occupied for the last few hours, he's alone. Not much time must have passed: he recognizes some of the patrons who are still here. He pushes himself upright, the buzz mostly gone and the faintest twinge of a headache beginning to take its place. He scans the establishment for Xiah's face, his haircut, the shirt he was wearing, but . . . nothing.

When it hits him, he bolts up from his chair, headache or no.

He finds Xiah on the beach. The young man looks startled when Yoochun catches up to him, like he's been caught at something he's ashamed of. "What're you doing out here?" Yoochun asks, breathless.

"Just thinking. You were so tired, I thought I should let you get some sleep—"

"Bullshit. You haven't been acting like yourself since we stopped here. Now tell me, please." Yoochun takes his arms. "What's really going on?"

Xiah shakes his head. When it all comes rushing out, Yoochun regrets ever wanting the truth.

"I have to go back. I've been away too long, I don't know how much longer I can stay like this. I shouldn't have stayed with you all this time. I've never pushed myself this far before, and if I don't go back now, I don't know what could happen—"

"What do you mean, go back? This isn't still about that dolphin business—"

"This is what I am!" But he can read it plain as day on Yoochun's face. "You still don't believe me." Xiah pulls himself away, like Yoochun's hands burn him. "I really thought it could be different with you, but I guess it doesn't matter in the end. What you believe or not. Either way, you won't have to see me again."

"What're you—Xiah? Xiah!" But he's already running for the waves, coming in fast with the rising tide, and Yoochun trips in the sand to catch up with him.

He's there to catch him just as Xiah doubles over. His skin feels feverish to Yoochun's touch. Why didn't he notice before? "Are you okay?"

Xiah doesn't answer. He straightens as the water rushes over their feet and legs, still low but threatening to pull them off balance. He stares into the waves as they recede again, and then it dawns on him in a flash of revelation. He turns to Yoochun, his eyes shining with a light that they shouldn't have on a moonless night. "Come with me."

Yoochun recoils. "What are you talking about?"

"Don't you trust me?"

Trust has nothing to do with it, Yoochun wants to say, but, frozen by the surreality of the whole thing, he can only stare at Xiah when he grabs Yoochun's wrist tight in his hands. "Xiah, you can't honestly believe—" He finally digs his heels in when the young man tries to pull him further out to sea, for all the good the wet sand does beneath his feet. It shifts and slips, like it too is obeying Xiah's will. He's remarkably strong. And Yoochun feels his control all too quickly slipping away from him. "Wait! You can't take me out there. I'll drown!"

"No, you won't. You'll be okay," Xiah assures them both, his smile tight, determined. Lost to logic. "I know what the stories are all about now, the element that was always missing. It was there all along, it just wasn't said. I love you, Yoochun. If you love me too, like I know you do, you'll be fine. You won't feel a thing. That's how it works."

"That's what I'm afraid of." The water's getting higher now—black and cold, the larger waves lapping at his sternum. The old fears return. Nightmares brought to life, more real than real. Drenching him, disorienting him, squeezing and buffeting the breath from his lungs. "You're delusional. Xiah. Xiah, listen to me, please. You said yourself the stories were full of shit."

"That was before I understood."

"What's there to understand?" Fight. Pull as hard as he can. That's all Yoochun can do, because nothing else seems to be getting through. "No! Xiah, stop! Let me go— I'm not one of you, Xiah! You'll kill me!"

Something he says finally hits home. Xiah stops. He looks back just as the crest of a wave washes over his head, and for a split second, Yoochun can see all the pain and longing and remorse written across his face—and the abject terror of someone's who's never felt any of them before now.

Then the wave pushes them under.

Yoochun doesn't know how anything could be blacker than the surface of the ocean at night, until he's beneath it. He can't tell if his eyes are open, because open or closed, they don't do him any good. Up and down have lost all meaning, as has any semblance of self-control. The sea is a living thing, penetrating his clothes, his senses, plucking him up off the sand like a rag doll and whisking him away tight in its grip. He fights. He knows it's the last thing he should be doing, but he fights. His lungs burn with stale air and sea water. He thinks he hears a voice, something like a scream of agony, it sounds so far away, but any sense of his surroundings is warped by the rushing, sucking water.

Just when he doesn't think he can hold on another second, the fresh night air hits his face like a slap. He coughs and manages to suck in half a breath before the next wave rolls over him, and that's when it hits him that he's alone.

Xiah. Xiah was right there, holding his wrist when he went under. Now Yoochun can't feel him, let alone see him. If he can just get to the surface again, just get a moment to breathe, he can take a better look, call for help, but he can't even do that much. He's going to die out here.

Just before he loses consciousness, he has a sense of something moving against him, something sleek and hard and massive. Something alive. I must be dreaming, he thinks, terrified, because there's no reason, no reason at all that whatever that creature is, it should feel just like Xiah.

* * *

White walls blind him when he comes to, and—it takes a moment, but once it catches up to him what happened, where he was, Yoochun has to wonder if he's in heaven.

But one of the blurry figures leaning over him and shining a light into his eyes asks him if he speaks English, and he knows better.

"Where am I?" He knows it's his own voice asking the question, but it doesn't sound like him at all.

"In the hospital," the doctor tells him through a thick accent. "You were caught in an undertow, pulled out to sea. But fortunately you knew what to do. They found you on the beach when they called paramedics." He smiles, though Yoochun can't imagine what for. "You don't remember? Well, you had been drinking. Can't imagine you'll be making that mistake again."

Yoochun shakes his head. It feels like it's full of cotton. Last night hasn't fully come back to him yet, it still feels like something he dreamt—as does this conversation, for that matter—but he is sure about one thing: "I didn't swim to shore."

"Well, what does it matter? You're alive, and you're going to be just fine. Now get some sleep. We have some questions regarding your insurance, but they can wait until you feel better. You've just survived a harrowing experience. You should consider yourself lucky."

The doctor gives him a pat on the shoulder before he turns to attend to other patients, and he doesn't see Yoochun break down silently into tears.


End file.
